Book: Gasping for Breath

 Gasping for Breath: Inviting God's Spirit Into Your Overwhelmed Life

If you're a mom or a dad trying to juggle work with childcare and homeschooling, a business or ministry leader adjusting on the fly to a rapidly changing and unprecedented landscape, or a young man or woman grappling with relationships, technology, schooling, and jobs in a virtual world, you’ll find yourself gasping for breath at some point. We all do.

If you’re wondering what it takes to endure when you’ve personally hit the wall, to stay in something and work through the challenges that try to hold you back when you can no longer breathe, this book may be for you.

Gasping for Breath is an invitation to learn how to breathe in the life-giving breath of God’s Spirit and become fully alive. God is breathing His life into men and women, renewing and restoring and recreating. Right here. Right now. He can do it for you. Take a deep breath, and let’s get started!

Book: Lutheran Toolkit

 Lutheran Toolkit

The "Lutheran" in the title doesn't mean The Lutheran Toolkit is just for Lutherans. It's about a Lutheran witness for the whole church and for all sinners with ears to hear. It's a slender book about the big theological ideas the evangelical reformers of the 16th century used as a lens for understanding God's work in Christ.

Starting with Philip Melanchthon's 1530 Augsburg Confession, which was drafted to defend the preaching and teaching of Luther and his colleagues, Ken Sundet Jones sees its primary themes as a set of tools that God uses to build faith in us. He takes the reader beyond scholarly analysis and historical explanations and uses his own experience as a college professor, parish pastor, and sinner looking for mercy, to discover God's handiwork in our lives.

Each chapter takes as its starting point one of the foundational ideas presented to the Holy Roman Emperor and representatives of the church, including Sin, God hidden and revealed, justification, ministry, the Christian life, the church, sacraments, and vocation. These are not simply theological categories for scholars to debate or historians to recount. They're the lived experience of the faithful from the first believers, to big thinkers like Augustine and Luther, to people in the pews, at the supper table, in their careers, and at their deathbeds throughout the ages.

The tools in this kit continually point to Jesus as the one who promises mercy and abundant life - and who has the power to deliver them. This is a word for those who've not yet heard it and for those who desperately need to hear it again.

2021 Lenten Devotions: Bearing the Cross

 Sydney Lutheran Church's Lenten Devotions, Bearing the Cross invites people to journey with Jesus in bearing the Cross of Faith for 15 minutes (or less) a day.

You can either watch the Lenten Devotions online or download a written devotion.   

They are available at:  https://sydney.lutheran.org.au/midweek-lenten-devotions-bearing-the-cross/

Book: How to Talk about Jesus (Without Being That Guy): Personal Evangelism in a Skeptical World

Most Christians know they should be trying to tell their friends and family about Jesus. But in a post-Christendom world, personal evangelism is viewed negatively--it's offensive, inappropriate, and insensitive. Recent studies confirm that the majority of Christians rarely evangelize, worried they might offend their family or lose their friends. In How to Talk About Jesus (Without Being That Guy), author Sam Chan equips everyday Christians who are reluctant and nervous to tell their friends about Jesus with practical, tested ways of sharing their faith in the least awkward ways possible.

Drawing from over two decades of experience as an evangelist, teacher, and pastor, Chan explains why personal evangelism feels so awkward today. And utilizing recent insights from communication theory, cross-cultural ministry, and apologetics, he helps you build confidence in sharing your faith, and teaches you how to evangelize your friends and family in socially appropriate ways.

Online Advent Calendar

 Use and visit an online Advent Calendar, with a Jesse Tree emphasis

Available https://sydney.lutheran.org.au/advent-calendar/